Wortstellung - Word Order - In German Sentences: Inversions and Complications


In German as in English there are statements and assertions that follow a certain word order:

First PositionSecond Position3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. PositionFinal Position
SubjectVerbEverything ElseOther verbal elements
To be examined later

Some examples of German statements of fact are:
  1. Der Junge spielt gern Gitarre.
  2. Das Mädchen schreibt eine Deutscharbeit.
  3. Wir gehen morgen ins Kino.
  4. Das Kind trinkt ein Glas Milch.

The word order in German statements is flexible. The subject doesn't need to be in First Position. Other sentence elements that come after the verb can be in first position. If they are, then the subject - the noun doing the action of the verb - MUST be in Third Position. Examine the following chart and compare with the one above:


First PositionSecond PositionThird Position3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. Position Final Position
Sentence Element other than subjectVerbSubjectEverything ElseOther verbal elements
To be examined later

If you want to emphasize something in the sentence other than the subject, then you can put that sentence element - noun phrase, time adverb, place adverb, prepositional phrase - in first position. The conjugated verb remains in Second Position in German statements of fact. The subject will then occupy the third slot, if its first position slot is occupied by another sentence element.

Let's change the word order of the sentences above to emphasize sentence elements other than the subject. Here are the original sentences with normal word order and their transformations. The element in red will be the one displaced to first position. The subjects are in blue.

  1. Der Junge spielt gern Gitarre.
  2. Das Mädchen schreibt eine Deutscharbeit.
  3. Wir gehen morgen ins Kino.
  4. Wir gehen morgen ins Kino.
  5. Das Kind trinkt ein Glas Milch.
  1. Gitarre spielt der Junge.
  2. Eine Deutscharbeit schreibt das Mädchen.
  3. Ins Kino gehen wir morgen.
  4. Morgen gehen wir ins Kino.
  5. Ein Glas Milch trinkt das Kind.

This kind of simple inversion adds variety and emphasis to your spoken and written German.

Aufgabe

Take the following ten sentences and transform them. Put the red sentence elements in first position.

Beispiel

Ich bringe morgen zur Schule das Radio.

Das Radio bringe ich morgen zur Schule.

Note
For umlauts and Ess-tsets use this convention:
  • ä = type alt 0228 Remember to keep the alt key depressed as you hammer out the other 4 digits.
  • ö = type alt 0246
  • ü = type alt 0252
  • Ü = type alt 0220
  • Ä = type alt 0196
  • Ö = type alt 0214
  • ß = type alt 0223
Also, ALL questions must be answered for this exercise to work.
Name

Date


  1. Der Junge wohnt in der Stadt.


  2. Der Lehrer geht jeden Samstag ins Kino.


  3. Wir spülen das Geschirr.


  4. Er besucht heute abend Freunde.


  5. Herr und Frau Brauer gehen um 22 Uhr nach Hause.


  6. Sie schreibt heute nach der Schule eine Arbeit.


  7. Das Kind spielt Baseball.


  8. Ich mache Hausaufgabe.


  9. Du spielst nach der Schule Gitarre.


  10. Ihr trinkt Cola und Fanta.




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